A Trip to the Woods

How red wine, driving Toad, Wordsworth, China, the woods and I all met one stormy morning.

Arms thrust backwards, face towards the sky, sunglasses protecting the other walkers from my bleary red eyes and me from the meagre light squeezing through the dense grey clouds, I challenged – full of fate defying bravado – the winds to burst through the red wine grog head currently destroying my morning. I had felt that a stomp around the exotic woodland of Rickmansworth Aquadrome on such a morning would be the perfect strategy for obliterating the hangover I had been trying to ignore, yet even with the frequently occurring pulse quickening skid across wet leaves, morning rain blasting from the leaves into my face and encouraging yet somewhat wary ‘good mornings’ from the suspicious, stubbornly unwaveringly friendly dog walkers, I still found it difficult to open my eyes. Again, I stopped raised the arms and called/begged to the winds.

I was reminded of my recent trip to the Lake District. The recollection of me as I drove in the middle lane of the M6 acknowledging the three Mercedes white vans driving next to each other at the same speed across the lanes behind me. My lumpy grey Peugeot the Cate Blanchett ethereal body and the majestic vans my outstretched elfin sleeves as I glided up our tarmacked trail. Somewhat difficult to imagine perhaps but I enjoyed the moment before moving past the ridiculous 17year old gripping the wheel in her trendy little fiat, fear and concentration firmly etched in her face. I, graceful and challenging; she, fearful and tense – oh, she was missing out in her rigid bearing.

Still, as difficult and sanguinely desperate as it was to imagine myself an airy being gliding over a central British motorway, I did feel that I was at last having a mini adventure. Brown, orange and yellow leaves gathered at the edges of the motorway, much like the sand used to do in Dubai when we would set off on a road trip to the desert. Fields and sky rose as I zoomed around bends and while I was not greeted by majestic giant dunes or rugged mountains of Oman, I was warmly gathered into the rolling carpeted hills of the midlands and particularly loved the miles before and after the M6 toll station, an area the frugal brits clearly avoid.

My adventure continued as the satnav upon which I disappointingly depended, guided me to the centre of a field, apparently two minutes away from my destination. I followed, naively, avoiding sheep and waving politely and strained at the bearded bobble-hatted dog walker who greeted me hesitantly as I jumped and hopped over the boulders and pot holes of a haphazard and vague concrete path. It was as I approached a rotten, fractured and windswept gate, guarding nothing but more grass and sheep that had not quite figured out that there was no fence either side of the gate, that I considered that perhaps the destination was not quite the intended one.

I paused, the sheep wandering over to investigate their unexpected visitor and considered how this could have happened. Was my expectant host playing a trick on me? Surely not – she’d been waiting for me for bloody hours. Had the sat nav decided that the lonely tractor atop a horizon of fields was worth contemplating at sunset? Or perhaps this gate, in its pointless yet determined stance had drawn me here, miraculous Stonehenge mysticism interfering with satellite signals. Unlikely. Forming recollective shape in my mind, however, was a seemingly insignificant and clumsy necessary pitstop I had been obliged to take two hours before. On lowering to the toilet seat, I was instructed by my jacket pocket that I should continue forward 200 yards. I panicked. Attempting to balance, hovering over the seat while also switching off the satnav and acknowledging the sniggers escaping the lady in the cubicle next to me, I had assumed I’d rectified the rogue robotic voice. Perhaps, however, I had inadvertently switched the destination to the centre of Cumbria, thereby introducing a deviation from route and the ultimate intended destination of my friend’s house in Kendal? I was as stumped as the sheep surrounding me and shared, just for the moment, their helplessness.

Still, here was some drama; the sparse, beautiful yet harsh surroundings; the fact that the red light had just appeared beneath my petrol gauge; the intimidating realisation that I had to make a 360 degree turn in a mud sodden field in my tired little 207. The amphibious facade of the car, however, manifest into impressive action as my little toad once again gathered momentum and hopped across the field – hopefully toward the re-established correct destination.

I arrived. Eventually. We sat, reunited and back to normal after too long apart and talked as if we’d never been apart; of times before, things to come and plans for the next day’s adventure. An appropriate outing was selected: a trip to Dove Cottage. Where else would I go other than to the infamous home of Wordsworth and temporary abode of his slightly more edgy friend Coleridge. Yes, of course I wanted to see where they created, appreciated and explored – in more ways than one. Toad, again lived up to her name as we crashed through the grasping waters of Windermere which had burst onto the road after heavy rains. Windows steamed up, wipers not quite able to cope we splashed, avoided and burst through until we found the cottage. Beneath the low, dark door frames, I ducked unnecessarily and listened to the guide recount his daily dab of knowledge that he bestowed upon city heathens and Chinese tourists (I was actually grateful and a little smug to use a Mandarin again – a simple ‘thank you’ was enough). As well as looking through the windows they did, tripping the same board as they possibly did, sitting in the very same chair that the poet did, we learned that this little cottage was a central hub for social gatherings and visitors. I loved it. I loved that Wordsworth and Dorothy welcomed and entertained in this impracticably small but gorgeous home. Again, I thought to my cave in Shanghai; to the dinners I cooked and the people dotted around the small space. The laughing, the wine bottles, the neighbours stopping by and nodding, smiling bemused at the strangers.

So what with the delicious geek fest tour, the trudging, dilapidated castles on dramatically green hills surrounded by a violently beautiful blue sky, cinema, cosy pubs with open fires, my realisation about BMW drivers (perhaps next time) and many other seemingly insignificant but oh so fulfilling moments, my mini trip to the Lakes was rather wonderful. How strange, I pondered, that Shanghai, England of 300 years ago, a dramatically wet day in the Lake District with my friend Katie, and now a dreadful hangover are somehow linked and fond. Another stab of pain above my right eye ball and a heavy lurch from my stomach, however, brough me crashing right back to reality. Down dropped the breeze, my arms dropped down, twas sad as sad could be. My stomach did speak, if only to break, the pause in medicinal rhythm… by the side of a spooky nook of the wood back in Rickmansworth. I was reminded lamentably of the task at hand and trudged on.